Improving the Technical Aspects of Software Testing in Enterprises

Abstract: Many software developments projects fail due to quality problems. Software testing enables the creation of high quality software products. Since it is a cumbersome and expensive task, and often hard to manage, both its technical background and its organizational implementation have to be well founded. We worked with regional companies that develop software in order to learn about their distinct weaknesses and strengths with regard to testing. Analyzing and comparing the strengths, we derived best practices. In this paper we explain the project's background and sketch the design science research methodology used. We then introduce a graphical categorization framework that helps companies in judging the applicability of recommendations. Eventually, we present details on five recommendations for tech-nical aspects of testing. For each recommendation we give im-plementation advice based on the categorization framework.